


The Saga of the Himbo Herald

by tklivory



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Crack, Humor, M/M, Silly, crackfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:41:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26542369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tklivory/pseuds/tklivory
Summary: Meet Harold the Herald of Andraste, born when my mind needed some silliness to offset the drama of the world.Harold, who doesn't want you to harsh his vibe.Harold, who is liketotallyinto Cassandra, dude, like, you havenoidea. I mean, if the Iron Bull isn't busy, because, like, who wouldn't want to ridethat,if you know what I mean and I think you do?Harold who, against all reason and expectation, actually ends up saving the world--sort of. Maybe. Hey, where'd Solasbro go?
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	The Saga of the Himbo Herald

_As told by Philliam! The Bard_

It is said that when times are darkest, a hero will appear to save the day. They arrive on a pure white horse with flaming sword held aloft, cape billowing in the wind--preferably in slow motion to get the full effect--as they ride to the rescue of whatever malicious malcontent has dared to menace the masses. The variously sized bosoms of maidens and other, lesser known species of virgin may heave at the very mention of the hero’s name, stars filling their eyes as they dream of the moment when they will meet and fate will take its romantic course. Nobles and merchants may vie for the chance to encounter the hero, hoping to bask and benefit in their glory. These are the tales where word spreads far and wide of their magnificence and might, and where capes never tangle, swords never rust, and bears...well, there _are no bears._ Not in _these_ kinds of tales, at least.

This, however, is not that sort of tale.

Nor is this a tale about a stalwart young woman who, with a face of determination, grabs her grandmother’s rusty sword from the wall and rides out on the family nag to kill the flock of darkspawn endangering her village and thusly find her way into the storied ranks of the Grey Wardens. Indeed, it isn’t even yet the tale of the servant who escapes a life of cruelty to find their fame in the shadowy cabal of the Antivan Crows, mixing contracts with conscience as they silently shape the future of Thedas by deciding who among the powerful shall live and who shall die. One might even expect it to be the tale of a clever young man who takes the pittance of an inheritance and builds it up through wit and charm into a merchant empire spanning Thedas from the tip of Rivain to the highest reaches of the Anderfels--with maybe even a corner shop or two in the Imperium.

But no. This is the tale of Harold.

His saga began like so many do, with a catastrophe such as the world had never known. In his case, it was kicked off vigorously and with an overabundance of enthusiasm when a large green explosion ripped open the sky, an explosion so monumental that it shook Thedas to its very foundation. Rifts burst into existence across the lands, demons fell from the sky, Templars and mages fought each other with no respite for--Oh, wait. They were doing that already.

All right, never mind that. The _point_ is that these were dire times indeed. The Divine and all her retinue perished in the flames of oblivion, along with the most sacred site for the Chantry, the Temple which had cradled the ass and ashes of the most Holy Andraste for Ages upon Ages, and in the wake of the cataclysm chaos reigned. Who had done such a dastardly deed? Would the world ever be able to recover? And who would step forth to lead us into a bright new world of tomorrow?

The answer, unfortunately, was Harold.

Harold ended up at the Conclave by sheer accident--an accident which involved a nug, a golden-fleeced ram, two bears, a bucking bronto, and an entire squad of surly Fereldan farmers who wanted nothing more than to get Harold out of the beds of their sons and daughters as quickly as possible. He stumbled upon Haven because it was the end of the road to which he'd been driven, and he stayed because large amounts of people usually meant large amounts of food. One more man amidst the crowd didn’t really draw a lot of attention, so, nugwich in hand, he explored the vaunted ruins. It was a simple way to ignore more pressing questions, like what he was going to do with his life and whether or not his father would ever forgive him for the incident involving the Revered mother, the Knight-Lieutenant, and fifteen lace whips of despair.

Don’t ask. You _really_ don’t want to know.

At any rate, after the world exploded, Harold woke up in chains, head pounding with the pain of a thousand hangovers. It was, in his own words, a _‘harsh vibe, bro’_ , and it didn’t improve for some time. Accused of murder, paraded in chains for all to see, and forced to take up arms for the first time since he’d been kicked out of Templar school for herding all five hundred of Farmer Mukawk’s brontos into the armory, Harold’s future looked bleak indeed.

And then he encountered his first rift, which I shall relay using his exact words from when I spoke to him on the matter for this very saga:

 _And it was, like, all green and glowy shit like, whoa, and I was like, dude what is_ that? _And then the dwarf--Varric, my man, my bro, my main dude--yelled at me about some demon or something. Totally harshing my vibe, you know? He didn’t get it back then, but we cool now, no worries. But oh yeah, then the glowy green thing made a noise like_ *krchow* _and_ *bzzzt* _and_ *zzzap* _and I realized that, bro, this was a real problem, ya know? And then the bald dude--Solasbro, my Fade dude--grabbed my hand and pointed it at the green glowy thing and then it was like the sweetest ride_ ever! _Just all this tingly shit going up my spine and out my hand and I was like,_ whoa _, and then it kinda exploded a little and I was all like,_ whoa, _and then there was like a burst of green light that was just completely_ whoa _and then it was gone._ So _amazing, bro. Man, I had_ such _a boner. Too bad Cass hadn’t gotten that stick out of her ass yet, though let’s be real I'd let her hit me_ any _time. And not just with a stick, ifyouknowwhatImeanandIthinkyoudo._

All verbatim, yes. Also the hand gestures. _And_ the facial expressions. _And_ the--Look, let’s move on.

While Harold’s... _unique_ command of language is literally incredible, he at least managed to persevere through to the Temple, where he met the man who would henceforth be known to the Inquisition as Cullenbro. From there, with some heroic difficulty, he dispatched the Pride Demon by serving as a very effective distraction. After all, running around a demon in circles while telling it to _Just stop with the zapping already, my dude!_ would probably distract even the best of us.

Singed but undeterred, Harold went on to acquire his first proper title: the Herald of Andraste. It would be the first of only two, but would become the most iconic: Harold, the Herald of Andraste, whose tale will be told in this, the greatest work of Philliam! The Bard:

The Saga of the Himbo Herald!

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure where I'm going with this. I wrote it so I could laugh instead of cry.
> 
> If you like Harold the Himbo Herald and want something similar in between updates, might I suggest the adventures of Harold's distant cousin [Dailana Cousland, Valley Girl of Thedas?](https://archiveofourown.org/series/13003)


End file.
